The Semiotic Review of Books

Already in the 1950s some were proclaiming the twentieth century the " psychoanalytic century. " As it happened, they were right. But to which psychoanalysis were they referring? For clearly there has never been one psychoanalysis, as scholars of various persuasions have noted. Even during Freud's life as a psychoanalyst, from 1896-1939, we find a multitude of possible psychoanalyses at work. Freud himself is responsible for this situation, since he changed his views as often as he wished-with or without comment. As for Freud's most gifted followers, such as Otto Rank, Carl Jung, and Sandor Ferenczi, they quite naturally took this important lesson to heart: they made psychoanalysis their own. Of course, only Freud was permitted to do as he pleased without being judged a heretic or " wild " analyst. Only Freud could wander from the path of true psychoanalysis, even if there never was one. Debate among the many variants or, better, deviants of psychoanalysis-namely, among all of them-has therefore proven interminable. Yet as Sonu Shamdasani argues, interminable debate among competing psychoanalyses has been good for the promulgation of " psychoanalysis. " With the Index of the Standard Edition in hand, nearly anyone can find ample evidence that the latest fad is sponsored by something Freud once said, almost said, or should have said. Let's just face it: Almost all opinions are possible in the psychoanalytic literature, especially when it is a matter of grounding theories on a surfeit of fictional case studies concocted by Freud and his followers. That this history is far less scientific than politico-religious is obvious to almost anyone outside the analytic fold. But one still cannot assume such awareness among the many intellectual players of psychoanalysis, let alone among the (as a rule) less educated, practice-oriented therapists. Here's a provocation: How many 20 th Century theorists, most of whom have some stake in psychoanalysis, would admit that their intricate interpretations have only fed the politico-religious history of that movement? And another: How many semioticians would see their interpretive work as part of the recent history of exegesis of the divine word of Freud? Such provocations are intended for my colleagues who, through interpretive strategies that seek to repair, complete, or even dismantle some version of psychoanalysis, have to that very extent-sometimes ironically-continuously refashioned the foundation(s) of the movement today. In this respect, to echo something Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen has said, sophisticated partisans of Freud …